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| Virgins, by the Laying Aside of All Carnal Affection, are Imitators of God.
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Chapter
VIII.—Virgins, by the Laying Aside of All Carnal Affection, are
Imitators of God.
For, if a man be only in name called holy, he is
not holy; but he must be holy in everything: in his body and in
his spirit. And those who are virgins rejoice at all times in
becoming like God and His Christ, and are imitators of them. For
in those that are such there is not “the mind352
of the flesh.” In those who
are truly believers, and “in whom the Spirit of Christ
dwells”353
—in them
“the mind of the flesh” cannot be: which is
fornication, uncleanness, wantonness; idolatry,354
| 354 Lit.
“the worship of idols.” The single word *** sometimes
used to express “idolatry” (as in Eph. Syr., opp.
tom. i. p. 116), is not found in these epistles. |
sorcery; enmity, jealousy, rivalry, wrath, disputes, dissensions,
ill-will; drunkenness, revelry; buffoonery, foolish talking, boisterous
laughter; backbiting, insinuations; bitterness, rage; clamour, abuse,
insolence of speech; malice, inventing of evil, falsehood;
talkativeness,355
babbling;356
threatenings, gnashing of teeth, readiness
to accuse,357
| 357 The word thus
rendered is not in the lexicons, but is well illustrated by
Isa. xxix. 21 (“that make a man an
offender”), where the Hiphil of אטָחָ is used, corresponding to the Aphel of the same root,
from which the present word is derived. | jarring,358
| 358 The word is used in
the Peschito of 1 Tim. vi. 5, to express διαπαρατριβαί
(“incessant quarrellings,” Alf.); [R.V.,
“wranglings.”—R.]. | disdainings, blows; perversions of
the right,359
| 359 Ex. Conject.
Beelen. The word is not in the lexicons. | laxness in
judgment; haughtiness, arrogance, ostentation, pompousness,
boasting of family, of beauty, of position, of wealth, of an arm
of flesh;360
quarrelsomeness,
injustice,361
eagerness for
victory; hatred, anger, envy, perfidy, retaliation;362
| 362 Or “returning
of evils.” | debauchery, gluttony, “overreaching
(which is idolatry),”363
“the love
of money (which is the root of all evils);”364
love of display, vainglory, love of rule,
assumption, pride (which is called death, and which “God fights
against”).365
Every man
with whom are these and such like things—every such man is of the
flesh. For, “he that is born of the flesh is flesh; and he
that is of the earth speaketh of the earth,”366
and his thoughts are of the earth.
And “the mind of the flesh is enmity towards God. For it
does not submit itself to the law of God; for it cannot do
so,”367
because it is in
the flesh, “in which dwells no good,”368
because the Spirit of God is
not in it. For this
cause justly does the Scripture say regarding such a generation as
this: “My Spirit shall not dwell in men for ever, because
they are flesh.”369
| 369 Gen. vi. 3. [This is an example of the
vicious method of interpretation, not yet extirpated, which carries
Paul’s distinctive use of the term “flesh” back to
the Pentateuch, where no ethical sense is necessarily
implied.—R.] |
“Whosoever, therefore, has not the Spirit of God in him, is none
of His:”370
as it is
written, “The Spirit of God departed from Saul, and an evil
spirit troubled him, which was sent upon him from God.”371
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